The Summary of Baldicks Thesis - Essay Example

14 Apr. The summary of Baldick’s thesis: Books often come out to be totally different from the anticipations of the writers. They become vital enough to develop an identity of their own, which conflicts with the intentions of the authors. According to Freud, it is quite unfortunate that the creativity of a writer does not comply with his desire; the work develops on its on pattern and often becomes quite independent or strange. All writings generally follow this pattern, but the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley goes an extra mile in this behavior.

Frankenstein has shown twice as much of self-referentiality as novels conventionally do. The way it has been composed and the cultural status it has consequently attained imitate the core moments of a self-constructed story. The novel is based on the story of a monster. Just like this character that forms part of the story, Frankenstein assembles into a living being from the dead fragments originally collected by the writer. Upon getting published, the novel has totally freed itself from the textual frame that its author originally had tried to enclose it in.

Instead, the novel has gained an independent life in the form of a myth. Such a noticeable deviation from the pattern intended by the author does not result from the non-ability of literary texts to refer to things other than themselves. Indeed, the deviation is the result of the romanticism in the writing that tends to use the author’s creativity to signify the engagement of man with the world. In this way, the text becomes appealing to the audience by creating a wide domain of significance through its so-called circular self-reference.